“Hard Work Made Me Viral, Not Dunks” – Zion Williamson

From being an unknown to one of the best and the most famous high school basketball player, Zion Williamson is sure that people consider the reason behind him so being successful is because of his dunks. However, Williamson claimed that it’s his sheer hard work that has made him famous and successful.

“They think it’s because of my dunk. But it’s not. It was the work. I put in wooork to get to where I’m at. That’s the part that people miss,” said Williamson, who recently graduated from Spartanburg Day (S.C.) and will gear up for Duke next season.

While the popularity of Williamson has made him a celebrity and friend with hip-hop superstars like Drake and Quavo which has led to 1.5 million followers on Instagram, he is well aware that it’s all because of his hard work and not due to his multimillion viewed highlight videos. His struggle and success made the videos go viral and not the videos made him successful and famous.

“This is how I look at it. The highlight videos brought all the fame and accolades, but my work brought all the highlight videos. That’s the part that people miss,” said Williamson.

Williamson is also aware that younger players will try to follow in his footsteps thinking that if they also make enough highlights every game, they could be as famous as him. However, “That’s not how it works,” said Williamson.

“When that’s your goal, it doesn’t work. Aside from winning, my goal every game was just to be aggressive, do the moves I work on every day and outwork everyone. Highlight videos didn’t get me ranked top two, showcasing my skills and working hard on those skills did.”

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To make it clear for everyone, Williamson drew people’s attention to the length of his highlight videos. He said “They’re about three minutes long, but we played 30-plus games. Trust me they don’t show everything. When I was scoring 40 and 50 points in the game, it wasn’t all off highlights. I had to have skill to get to the basket and score most of the time. For the guys coming up, focus on honing your craft, playing with a motor and outworking everyone and the highlights will come. Just not before the hard work.”

Well, it is indeed Williamson’s sheer dedication and passion towards the game which has made him a superstar.